


Just One of Those Conversations that Never Happened

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe, Friendship, Gen, POV Third Person Limited, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 09:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2264994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night before Fraser leaves on vacation, he gets a surprise visit from Ray.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just One of Those Conversations that Never Happened

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be for the prompts "I don’t want to have another friend/I don’t want to wonder how your life has been" and "trip" at [ds-snippets](http://ds-snippets.livejournal.com), but when the original draft is more than twice the maximum word count, there's really no stuffing it into the smaller package. Oops.
> 
> Go write snippets, everybody!

Two years in Chicago and Fraser still won’t lock his damn door. Of course, he does have a watch-wolf, who growls as Ray slips into the dark apartment.

“Shh! It’s just me.”

“Ray? What—?” Nice thing about Fraser, he can go from sound asleep to completely alert in zero seconds.

“Listen, Benny, I was never here, okay?”

“You’ve been here many times—” 

“Yeah, but I wasn’t here _tonight._ Understand?”

“Are you in trouble?” Fraser asks, bless his heart.

“Nah,” Ray half-lies. “I just got to tell you something.”

It’s weird to be standing in the dark two steps inside Fraser’s door, with Fraser himself still in bed, but it’s actually easier to spit the words out if he doesn’t have to see what he’s doing.

“I’m leaving. Chicago. I got this gig—top secret, really can’t talk about it. Anyone finds out I told you, we’re both in—”

“Understood. You weren’t here tonight, and you never told me anything.”

“Yeah.”

“So. . .” There’s just enough light in here that Ray can see Fraser sit all the way up, putting his feet on the floor. “Where is it that you’re not going? And how long will you not be there?”

“Las Vegas. And. . .a long time. This is real serious shit, Fraser. Mob shit. And I’m—I’m going undercover.”

There’s a pause.

“When you say undercover. . .does that mean you’ll be pretending to be a—”

“Goombah, yeah. Pretty high-up one. Look, I know what you’re thinking—” He doesn’t, actually, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to find out. “But the feebs have my nuts in a vise, and they’re twisting Welsh’s arm pretty hard, too. I got no choice.”

“There are always choices,” says Fraser gently.

“Yeah, I know,” Ray sighs. “But. . .I’m not sure there even _is_ a right choice, here. And the job—it needs to be done. I do it right, we got a shot at taking a big bite out of the Mafia’s power base down there.”

“I see,” says Fraser slowly. After a moment more of thought, he straightens up, clapping his hands together briskly. “Well, when do we start?”

Ray splutters like he’s had a bucket of cold water thrown in his face, but no, actually, that’s just the sort of thing he should have _figured_ Fraser would say. God damn him.

“ _We_ don’t, Benny. I’m sorry—real sorry—but you can’t help on this one. ”

He’s glad he can’t see the look on Fraser’s face; the silence coming from him is bad enough.

“This is serious undercover.” Ray can hear the pleading in his own voice, leaking out through the bossiness. “Not just dinking around with used car dealers. And you remember how well _that_ went.”

“I remember that we apprehended the guilty parties, and kept a young man from losing his job through no fault of his own,” Fraser says quietly.

“Yeah. Yeah, we did.” Ray sighs. He knew coming here was a dumb idea; he just hadn’t quite understood _why_ it was. “But you can’t come. It ain’t up to me. They’ve only got one hole to fill, and that’s that.”

Another silence. Then Fraser says, “Yes, I see. Well. You’d better go, then. You have a long trip ahead of you.”

Ray feels like he’s choking, but he manages to get the words out sounding almost normal: “You going to say goodbye to me, Benny?”

“I don’t see how I can do that, when you were never here.”

Ray nods to himself in the dark. It’s no worse than he deserves for leaving Fraser in the lurch to go off and do the FBI’s dirty work—the kind of dirty work you don’t get clean from, after.

“Bye, Benny,” he whispers.

But as he puts his hand on the knob, Fraser’s voice comes from behind him, all cheerful and normal, like they’re just driving along by the lake on a sunny day.

“It’s too bad I didn’t have a chance to see you again before I left on my vacation. I wanted to get your advice on what to pack. You see, I thought I’d go somewhere warm, just for a change of pace.   I hear the American Southwest is lovely this time of year.”


End file.
